Or rather, bitching about my own country’s politicians for a change. It seems like I can’t turn around lately without seeing another story that just embarrasses me as a Canadian.
The classic example, which I’ve talked about here before, is the Tories’ continuing attempt to force a DCMA-style law down our throats. After getting his ass more or less handed to him last time, Prentics is back to his old tricks. I’ll quote Professor Geist again:
With only two weeks left in the House of Commons calendar until the summer recess (technically the House could sit for an additional two weeks but few expect that to happen), Industry Minister Jim Prentice is likely to introduce his new copyright bill next week or during the first week of June. While Prentice continues to claim that he is actively working on a bill that meets the needs of creators and consumers, the talk in Ottawa is that the bill is done. The DMCA provisions that generated so much opposition last December are still there as Prentice is seemingly unwilling to take a stand against the U.S. pressure by siding with Canadian business, consumers, and education groups.
You know what to do, but again Mr. Prentice makes it easy.
It only takes a few seconds to send an email to Prentice, the Prime Minister, and your local MP, letting them know that Canadians won’t be deceived by a Canadian DMCA and that Canadian copyright reform should reflect fair copyright principles (and after you click send, print out the email and drop it in the mail without a stamp to House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, K1A0A6).
The copyright law isn’t the only goofy thing this government is trying to push through at corporate insistence, without regard for the public. For instance, there are the reports that the government is considering (again, without public consultation) some kind of “three strikes, you’re out” policy for copyright violation (why is it, incidentally, that the people who support right wing governments get so enamoured of the most simplistic and jingoist analogies?).
The good news here is that Europe (except for the UK, which sinks every deeper into Big Brotherdom) seems to be swinging back to reason a bit. Prof. Geist again:
While it remains unclear whether France will continue to pursue a domestic three strikes policy, the European Parliament vote is likely to dampen enthusiasm for the approach throughout Europe. The European Parliament decision is part of a broader swing back toward civil liberties protections. Earlier this year, the European Court of Justice ruled that “European Community law does not require the Member States, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to create obligations to reveal personal notes in the context of civil proceedings.” That decision followed an earlier German case that refused to order ISPs to hand over user details to the music industry, as the court concluded that ordering the disclosure of personal information would be “disproportionate.”
I bet you a large sum of money that all of this legislation won’t do a thing to sort out the Crown copyright issues, because there’s no strong corporate agenda pushing it.
It’s not just domestic policy either. It seems like every time Harper opens his mouth my political disgust goes up a notch or two. Did you catch his speech the other day where he trotted out the old “criticism of Israel means you are a Jew-hating Nazi” chestnut?
“I guess my fear is what I see happening in some circles is (an) anti-Israeli sentiment, really just as a thinly disguised veil for good old-fashioned anti-Semitism”
You know what? I bet in some circles that it is just a thinly-disguised veil. And I’ve got even less use for those people than I do for Harper. BUT, the fact that such people exist doesn’t make Israel criticism-proof. In exactly the same way that the fact that some yobs told Hillary to iron their shirts doesn’t exempt Hillary from all criticism. In exactly the same way that the existence of some group of people somewhere in the world that wants to “destroy America” doesn’t mean that the actions of DHS, and the US Administration generally, are exempt from rational analysis and criticism.
Damn right-wingers. Always going for the simplistic, for the sound bite.
Just in case you’ve decided that I’m an anti-Semite, I will now proceed to put myself on the Islamic shit list: Another thing that’s been in the news recently that kind of embarrasses me as a Canadian is all the stuff around our hate speech regulations. As you may recall I have a slightly more nuanced position on hate speech than on many things, but essentially I come down on the rights of the individual to think and say any old offensive thing–that it’s the place of the government to police actions, not thoughts or speech, and that for freedom of speech to be meaningful it has to be freedom of unpopular and offensive speech.
Even someone like myself, who leans more towards individual rights than the traditional Canadian notion of the primacy of collective rights, recognizes that there are limits though–in a previous post I mentioned the issue of educators, and there is also a pretty obviously blurry line between “free speech” and “inciting the commission of a crime”–and my concerns are more about making sure there’s a way to sensibly deal with those limits without giving too much discretionary power to government functionaries.
The courts appear to agree that the law needs to be enforced in a very narrow way:
In the 1990 Canada vs. Taylor case, which dealt with the constitutionality of Section 13(1), the Supreme Court of Canada laid out a very high standard required for proving a complaint. The majority decision in the case drew attention to the fact that since the provision applies only to messages “likely to expose persons to hatred and contempt,” Section 13(1) could not be applied to messages merely because they were “offensive” or caused bruised feelings. Messages likely to expose persons to hatred and contempt were those that excited “ardent and extreme emotions” and treated their objects as having no redeeming qualities and as deserving of being despised. Based on this legal threshold, Section 13(1) was considered narrow enough to avoid being used as a tool to suppress dissent or curtail genuine political debate.
Section 13(1) does not apply to hatred in the abstract, but specifically to hatred and contempt directed at members of a particular race, religion, ethnic group or other similar category.
And yet, I have to read articles about Mark Steyn and Macleans being charged under this law for publishing things that offend some Islamic groups–actually, as far as I can tell it’s for offending three students, but I admit I haven’t researched it deeply.
Look, I’m not a fan of Steyn, and certainly not of America Alone, but that doesn’t mean I think the government has any place stick it’s nose in here. This book, and the excerpt published in Macleans, might be wrong-headed and reactionary, but it doesn’t reach the standard of the Taylor test.
This on top of the earlier thing with Ezra Levant and the Western Standard. I was pissed off when Heather decided to pull Harper’s because of the cartoons, but I was mortified when my government did this. And I am certainly not a Western Standard fan either.
And now another one right here in Halifax, around a political cartoon, that was certainly in bad taste, but just as certainly not something that meets the standards of the Taylor test.
I find myself on the edge of a ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’
